


Sorcerer's Ways

by Calyss



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Geographical Inaccuracies, Infidelity, M/M, Padmé is the Queen of Everything, by that i mean that i'm mixing planets and cities and ignoring names i don't like, force users are wizards, or at least a good chunk of the known lands, pfff idk i'll tag as i go, this is so very unplanned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 13:26:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11253879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calyss/pseuds/Calyss
Summary: Anakin Skywalker, a young knight from the Midlands, is sent to escort the Duke of Mandalore as he goes to to the free city of Coruscant to negotiate peace in the name of Queen Amidala. But the Duke, a former knight and war hero, is hiding something. Something that Anakin is determined to uncover, as he believes it to be of a dark nature. That is, until learns about something far more sinister, waiting...





	Sorcerer's Ways

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two days ago I didn't know this was going to exist but I started to draw and... here it is.

 

Reigning in his horse, Anakin leaned back on his saddle and looked up at the high, black walls that surrounded the city of Sundari. It must have been an impressive sight on an average day but with the sun shining bright, the glossy stone made for a glorious display, reminding him of the former might of the kingdom of Mandalore, now a mere province of the Midlands. He frowned as he saw that no one was patrolling them, thinking of the corpses that littered the streets of Christophsis, of the besieged ramparts of Ryloth, of the unrest that plagued Theed.

His discontentment was aggravated as he went through the city. People here looked unburdened, carefree, obviously thinking that the political stance of their leader would shelter them from war for ever. The feeling was instantly followed by shame. He should not have been angered by people being at peace. It was petty and unfair. 

Urging his horse through the wide doors that led into the castle yard, Anakin chased those thoughts from his head and wondered, for at least the hundredth time since he’d left Theed five days before, if the Duke would be as formidable as his reputation made him out to be.

He’d heard much about Obi-Wan Kenobi. The man had been a knight, just like Anakin himself, until he had left the Order to marry Satine Kryze, a woman known for her strictly pacifist ways. That single point set apart, they talked about Kenobi with the uttermost respect, praising his prowess in combat and strategy as much as the diplomatic skills that had earned him the nickname of Negotiator.

And it was precisely for this reason that Amidala had called upon him: to negotiate.

Twenty minutes and a great number of doors and inquiring guards - whose pikes looked more ornamental than practical - later, he was urged into a richly decorated study, where gilded furniture and comfortable looking chair disputed the place to piles and piles of documents and books and scrolls. None of the people present was sitting, though, and the atmosphere felt tense. The Duchess, whom he recognize from the visit she'd given to the Queen a few months back, was standing in front of a high window, looking down on the castle's yard, while a man who could only be the Duke was bent over a large table covered in maps and documents. Two other men where absorbed in a hushed conversation in one corner. Anakin considered them and dismissed them at neither important nor a menace and reported his attention on the Duke.

He had expected to find… Well, he didn’t know what exactly he expected. Someone taller, maybe. Rougher. Older.

What he didn't expected was this lean, elegant man, who couldn't be older than thirty-five.

 

 

It made anger spike into him once again. He should have been fighting! Not hiding there into his wife's castle!

But then he remembered. He remembered how it had been those five years under the Sith Empire's rule. The horror of it. The horror that Kenobi and the other knights had sent back to its dark hole up in the North. And his anger subsided. If there was one man who deserved peace, even in such troubled time, it was this one.

The Duchess turned to him and said in an impatient tone:

"Yes?"

He shook himself from his thoughts and bowed in her direction.

“Anakin Skywalker, your Grace. Here to escort the Duke to Coruscant.”

The merchant city, due to its neutral status and its central position, had been chosen as a meeting place for the two delegations. Anakin wished they could have agreed on a less crowded location. Securing the meeting would be hell in the overpopulated city.

The duchess didn’t comment on his introduction but looked at him down her nose, her eyes raking judgmentally over him and obviously finding him lacking - of what, though, he wasn’t sure. She finally set her gaze over his sword and the already hard line of her mouth turned into a grimace of disgust.

“I thought we agreed this was unnecessary,” she said, addressing her husband without looking away from Anakin. The Duke didn’t look up from his maps but frowned in confusion.

“Did we now, dear?”

“You’re going there to negotiate, not to wage war.”

“I doubt very much I’d be able to engage in any battle worthy of this name with only one man, Satine.”

“Only one man?”

Anakin’s voice had came out strangled with incredulity. He’d thought he was to lead a troop!

The Duke then looked at him for the first time since he’d passed the door to the study but unlike his wife, his face didn’t show any emotion as he looked Anakin up and down. The young knight felt himself heat up under the unwavering weight of his blue grey eyes and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, suddenly nervous.

"As my dear wife said, I'm going to Coruscant to negotiate peace. I don't believe I need more than one body guard for that. Beside, word says that you're worth ten men. Or are the rumors wrong?"

Anakin didn't know what to say to this. Was he to confirm that, yes, he was a pretty damn good warrior and risk passing for an arrogant fool or play down skills that he knew to possess?

"I'll do my best under the circumstances," he finally said, choosing a more neutral stance.

The Duke looked amused and, straightening up, said with 

"Of course, should danger arise, I am not defenseless myself."

"No, you're not", Anakin conceded. He was aware that reverence was audible in his voice, the result of years of hearing about the Duke's past exploits, and he knew the man could hear it when he looked at him with unmasked curiosity. They exchanged a long look that Anakin was nowhere near guessing the meaning of but made him feel like he was suddenly a lot less alone - _alone? I'm not_ alone _..._ The Duke was the first to break it, returning to his maps as if all was said and done and leaving Anakin feeling empty and lost.

 _That was not natural,_ he thought as a chill run through him. 

The Duchess huffed - a noise of discontent that nearly made Anakin jump and definitively look at her in confusion - and signaled one of the men that stood in the corner.

"Sir Merrik will show you to one of our guestrooms, then. Do you have a squire?"

"Not yet, your Grace."

He hadn't be a knight for long enough to deem himself ready for such a responsibility. Some other knights did it without any delay but those were typically the sort that considered squires to be servants before students, either because they had served that way under another knight and wanted some kind of revenge over life or because they were high born and too full of their own importance to realize that those young men and women would one day be their peers.

"Then I'll send for someone to attend to your needs and our servants will be yours as long as you and my husband are travelling together. We'll see you at dinner."

He followed the man out of the room, feeling extremely perplexed by the odd couple.


End file.
